“Pathways to a Basic Income,” Munich, Germany, September 14-16, 2012

The Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN), the parent organization of USBIG, will hold its 14th biennial Congress in Munich Germany on September 14-16, 2012. It will have an additional “host-nation” day on September 13. According to the conference website, “Every other year researchers, scholars, policy makers and politicians from different parts of the world get together to discuss alternatives that could lead to the promotion and implementation of an elementary principle of social justice: the guarantee of a monetary income. Ideas, experiences and new designs for public policies will be addressed by specialists and several guests for three days.” The 14th BIEN Congress will take place at the Wolf-Ferrari-Haus in the Munich suburb of Ottobrunn.

Plenary speakers include the following people: Mylondo Baptiste is a French philosopher and political scientist. He is the founder of the nonprofit association “Conso-age.” Bruna Augusto Pereira is cofounder of the non-governmental organization ReCivitas, which runs a unique project paying a basic income to every resident of the Brazilian village Quatinga Velho. Claus Offe is a Professor of Political Sociology at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin, Germany. Gotz W. Werner is a German entrepreneur and founder of the drugstore chain, “dm.” He is a prominent basic income advocate in Europe. Guy Standing is an economist and professor at the Department of Social and Policy Sciences at the University of Bath in Great Britain. Min Geum studied law in Seoul and Gottingen. He was candidate of the Socialist Party for president in South Korea in 2007. He founded the Basic Income Korean Network, the BIEN affiliate in South Korea. Philippe Van Parijs is professor at the faculty of economic, social and political sciences of the University of Louvain. Renana Jhabvala is one of the best-known representatives of women’s interests working in the informal sector in India. She has held several positions at the Self-Employed Women’s Association of India, which represents the interests of self-employed women at risk of poverty. Rolf Kunnemann is the Human Rights Director at the Secretariat of FIAN International (FoodFirst Information and Action Network) in Heidelberg. He has been working on human rights to adequate food, especially in rural areas of the Global South, since 1983. Tereza Campello is Minister for Social Development and Hunger Alleviation in Brazil.

The language of the main conference will be English, but some plenary sessions will have simultaneous translation into German. The language of the host-nation day will be German. Organizers recommend that people register for the conference early because of the limited number of available places available.

More information is available on the conference website:
https://www.bien2012.de/en

Even more information is available from the conference organizers at:
office@bien2012.de